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An anonymous reader writes "Jobseekers will be offered the chance to look for work through the new Universal Jobmatch website, which automatically pairs them up with opportunities that suit their skills after scanning their CVs. It will also allow employers to search for new workers among the unemployed and send messages inviting them to interviews. However, their activities may also be tracked using cookies, so their Job Centre advisers know how many searches they have been doing and whether they are turning down viable opportunities. Iain Duncan-Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said the scheme would 'revolutionize' the process of looking for work. He said anyone without a job after signing up to the scheme would be lacking 'imagination.'"

Also TFA points out the elephant in the room. Cookies cannot be used without consent in the EU. So, just say "no".

And then get called into the job centre to sit in front of a feckless bureaucrat, who explains that he is awfully "concerned" about your "failure to play the game" as their tracking system has been unable to detect your participation.

You do? Since when is it your human right to be given benefits by your government? I mean, I consider it a pretty valuable social policy, but it's far from a human right. If the government attaches strings to getting your benefits, like "you must let us see what you're doing to try and stop needing the benefits" I see no problem at all with that, let alone a human rights violation.

I would go so far as to say that it is absolutely your human right to die homeless if you are unwilling to work to support yourself. Welfare is great for those who are faced with a bad situation and need help to get out of it, but it's not meant to be a lifestyle choice.

I would go so far as to say that you sound remarkably like a Markov chain generator trained on the Daily Mail website.

I would go so far as to say that it is absolutely your human right to die homeless if you are unwilling to work to support yourself. Welfare is great for those who are faced with a bad situation and need help to get out of it, but it's not meant to be a lifestyle choice.

It's nice to have a system where the least fortunate can afford basic living most of the time, but I wouldn't have a problem if it became much harder to claim benefits in the UK.

Have you ever actually claimed jobseekers allowance yourself?

Many years ago I did when I first left university, I signed on in Moss Side dole office, Manchester (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_Side) before the area was redeveloped.

The funny thing is that even back then the dole were entitled to withhold your money if you were not actively looking for work, but they never did. The main reason seemed to me to be that the people working behind the counter had no great incentive to withhold your money, and every incentive not to in that if you take someone with no job, no money and then tell them they are not getting any dole that week they may react in a very violent manor. It is much easier for them to just let you sign on then go back to nattering to their colleague.

The only way it would work is if you gave the people in the dole office a real incentive to withhold peoples dole but this would bring about a completely different set of problems. The main one would be the people in the dole trying to take money away from people who were looking for work just so they guy in the dole could earn a bonus.

There are some people signing on who would see straight through this though and just break a chair over the guy in the dole offices head. That way they get fed for a week or so in prison instead. The problem with trying to take anything away from people on the dole is they don't have much to begin with so don't have a lot to lose if they break the law.

I was told to USE the portal when I signed on.. I did but didn't log in so they had no record of me using it. When asked why I wasn't using the portal. I told them I was and handed over a thick wad of paper printed off from the site of job adverts and the emails/ letters sent out.The advisor just said "ok carry on"

I got told by one guy while waiting to sign on one week - that he'd had his money stopped because the advisor asked him why he'd not applied for some of the jobs he'd looked at on the portal. Whe

Is it also your human right to let your children go hungry if you are unwilling to work to support yourself? the theory of "welfare" (defined in its narrow sense here as specific programs designed to give money to the needy) is that we are willing to tolerate some mooching by adults in order to protect children, given that options of actually taking away / moving childen are often in practice very limited (much more limited than you might think).

in Germany jobless people have to report any application for a job to the agency and they have to apply for a certain amount of jobs per month or they get no welfare. Still people say it is not enough and unemployed people should be a workforce of the government to clean parks etc. -.-

Yhea, same in the Netherlands. 1 job application per week or no welfare. Problem is you are not allowed to apply/take just any job. If you are let's say nuclear physicist and you apply to work as auto-mechanic, they tell you "you should find a job suited for you background, money has been invested in your education" Which is fine and dandy but there are NO 4 open positions per month for nuclear physicist. So?

From free market point of view I do not understand this at all. If a company X can get overqualified person for the announced salary, isn't that good for the company? There are no laws that regulate the salaries in the private sector. You get more performance for the same buck! Maybe that person wants to stop doing nuclear physics. Maybe there are really no jobs and he/she is so desperate that they want that job never mind the over qualification..also the tech jobs went East but we are not allowed to work anything else. So become permanently unemployed or die (the former eventually leads to the latter anyway)? What other options are there?

This whole shit has to stop but the only way I see is total rebuild of the socioeconomic model of Homo Sapiens. Fat chance...

I meant that more related to the government knowing how many searches one did, which is a joke compared to other countries. I was once unemployed for three weeks in Ireland, went to the office, filled in a form and got a check end of each week. No questions asked to a maximum of six months, I think. This is a model I would support, no stress and within six months people should be able to find another job.

6 months to find a job? Anyone is going to get a job should be able to get it in 3 months. What is really happening in month 5 that could not have happened by month 2? Don't get me wrong, I support unemployment insurance. I prefer someone getting a check in the mail to having the payment "manually extracted" from my wallet at gunpoint when everything goes all mad max. At the same time, there needs to be some sort of accountability. To receive unemployment, you should be below a certain net worth, not be usi

>Most people are perfectly capable of building up a 6 month emergency fund

>Anyone is going to get a job should be able to get it in 3 months

I see you're from the "get into your job cannon and fire off into job land" persuasion.

In the real world it's quite common for a person to do nothing but apply for jobs online (a thousand candidates per application) and offline (fifty candidates per application) for months with no response from anyone, not even a "thank you for applying."

In Michigan a few years ago I applied at every gas station, fast food place, and grocery store in my town. I also sent a targeted application with a crafted resume and cover letter out every day and untargeted ones to hundreds of companies a week. not a single fucking bite. No my resume didn't suck, no I'm not insane, on drugs, or a felon.

Sometimes the jobs just aren't there.

There's nothing more humiliating and painful than offering yourself and being rejected ten times a day. Go through the same experience and you'll have a lot more understanding and compassion for the unemployed.

There are always places better or worse than others. It completely sucks to be in a place that is pretty much scorched earth. I get it. That is pretty much an apocalyptic situation though that happens rarely and in few places. If there are absolutely zero jobs where you live, then unfortunately you have to move. If you still cannot find anything anywhere, then you probably want to tweak some things about how you are looking for jobs. This is not really a commentary on unemployment insurance (which I happen

You will see that "learn a completely new trade with guaranteed job prospects" in 2 months?" was actually saying 2 years.

In the US we have people who have been unemployed for 2+ years. This is ridiculous. You could easily learn a completely new trade with guaranteed job prospects in that amount of time.

What I was saying about the 2 months, is that if you do not change your situating after the two months or start applying for different types of jobs, what is the likelihood that you will actually find something in 6 more months? Probably pretty slim. I definitely do not mean to sound callous, but I do want to find a solution that will actually be effective. I have no problem with people b

jesus but you fucking rich people are STUPID. Most of us can't afford a fucking financial planner, dumbass.

I am not rich or a republican as a matter of fact. Also, you do not need a financial planner. A calculator and access to the internet will do just fine.

If hobo stabs you it will be because of your condescensing attitude toward the 99%, not your wallet. You, sir, are what's wrong with the world, you self-centered, arrogant, ignorant dickweed. Fuck you and all your wall street pals, asshole. You disgust me.

I am in the 99%, a democrat, and have no connection to wall street in the slightest. Also, I am refraining from foaming at the mouth as you have. Calling someone "condescending" seems a bit disingenuous when you follow it up with disgusting insults.

Over-EDUCATED people are not. Where the two groups intersect, the Over-education takes the priority for being unemployable.

The second group thinks the world owes them something. The first group has worked their way up and have enough life experience to know that the world doesn't owe them jack shit, and they should do their best at whatever task they are given.

If you are let's say nuclear physicist and you apply to work as auto-mechanic, they tell you "you should find a job suited for you background, money has been invested in your education" Which is fine and dandy but there are NO 4 open positions per month for nuclear physicist. So?

The problem is that a nuclear physicist can't get hired anywhere. Human resources tend to have the policy that they should hire only people who qualify precisely for the job. If they are too good, then it's assumed they will get bored and leave in no time.

I read about some guy in the newspaper. He owned a company which died due to the financial situation. After that he applied for more than 4000 jobs and has been rejected for everything. He asked quite a number of those places to give a reason for the rejection and they all stated he was overqualified.

From free market point of view I do not understand this at all. If a company X can get overqualified person for the announced salary, isn't that good for the company?

Usually no. I don't know about Germany but in the US a statistic I have heard from more than one HR type is that employees usually cost an average of 120% of there normal annual compensation in the first year. This is due to fees with off cycle benefits enrollment, lost productivity of others while they train you for the company/job specific aspects of the position, anything else the company might offer like covering moving expenses, etc.

New employees at just about any level beyond cleaner or mail room typically represent some level of investment (that added 20%) and its looked at that way rather than just as a pure labor expense, regardless of how the accounting is done. Over qualified folks are generally looking for a better opportunity elsewhere from the moment they arrive. Even if they do great work they are likely to be out the door as soon as they can. The company is then going to have to hire someone new at 120% cost.

So from the perspective of many employees a correctly qualified person is a better investment. They will get more years out of them that way doing job they need done now, and if the company is growing perhaps they can manage to make the position grow at around the same rate the individual does which results in better economy for both parties.

The theory that leads to companies not wanting to employ overqualified people is that said overqualified people will be looking for something better constantly, or trying to one up their managers constantly. This leads in theory to them either not holding their job for long, and the company needing to start hiring/training all over again, or the manager getting seriously pissed off with the guy.

If you apply to a job which YOU KNOW you are overqualified for, then way send that resume? You don't go to an auto garage and apply for a job stating you have a PHD in mechanical engineering. You go there and tell them you can turn a wrench, replace a head gasket and rebuild a transmission, or are willing to learn those things. It like the time I went to CompUSA out of high school for a summer gig and filled in the application stating my prior computer knowledge was Linux/Unix, C/C++, Assembler, Networking

No unemployment (and really, you get a small fine last I heard) but welfare is DIFFERENT (Uitkering in Dutch). You don't have to job hunt on wellfare, it is for people that are unemployable for whatever reason, in fact, it is meant as safety net for EVERYONE. And it is almost impossible to loose.

Yhea, same in the Netherlands. 1 job application per week or no welfare. Problem is you are not allowed to apply/take just any job. If you are let's say nuclear physicist and you apply to work as auto-mechanic, they tell you "you should find a job suited for you background, money has been invested in your education" Which is fine and dandy but there are NO 4 open positions per month for nuclear physicist. So?

From free market point of view I do not understand this at all. If a company X can get overqualified person for the announced salary, isn't that good for the company?

From free market point of view I do not understand this at all. If a company X can get overqualified person for the announced salary, isn't that good for the company?

I would have thought so, too, until the last time I was unemployed a quarter century ago (I retire in a little over a year). There were no jobs in my field, and I went almost two years doing little more than looking for work, every day. Every job I went after I was "too qualified." The thing is, employers don't like turnover and if you're quali

It's the complete opposite in the USA. I've been on unemployment assistance a few times. If you are offered a job, ANY job, you are required to take it so long as you are physically capable of doing the work, and that includes heavy lifting if you don't have a documented disability. It's perfectly legal for someone from Walmart to camp out outside the unemployment office and offer jobs to whoever walks out of the office, and so long as it's done within view of an employee, they are *required* to take tha

A nuclear physicist is not over qualified to be an auto mechanic tho, he will probably know very little about cars and need to be trained. Cars are generally not nuclear powered so his existing skills would be pretty much useless.

On the other hand there are plenty of completely unskilled jobs which anyone could do with little or no training and putting over qualified people in those jobs is bad for the reason you state...

The problem is when there are a surplus of people qualified in a particular field, sinc

in Germany jobless people have to report any application for a job to the agency and they have to apply for a certain amount of jobs per month or they get no welfare. Still people say it is not enough and unemployed people should be a workforce of the government to clean parks etc. -.-

Sounds like common sense to me. I just wish governments had enough backbone to actually do stuff like that.

Whenever you create a system which covers people's basic needs without asking anything in return you'll create a bunch of people who'll take what's offered then dedicate their free time to wheeling and dealing for beer money (usually doing 'easy money' stuff which is detrimental to society...)

Why would anybody try to get a proper job when they can live like that?

It can sound like common sense but as with many thing the devil is in the detail.

Consider cleaning parks for example. That's going to be a local council responsibility in the UK but in many cases the council probably contract it out to a private company. So within the current framework, if people on benefits are made to do the work then the private enterprise is getting the money for the contract but has lower labour costs. Who becomes the parasite then?

In principle I have no objection to people on benefits having to carry out some civic function but I am very opposed to any private enterprise profiting as a result. That's why I am opposed to the current UK Workfare scheme. It's not creating jobs; it's just allowing private enterprise to get free labour, in effect making them government subsidised. If they're getting taxpayer funded labour, then I as a taxpayer should get a vote at their AGM.

There are many things which local councils don't do due to lack of budget, while they might clean parks they generally don't collect dropped litter from the streets in general (and dropped litter gets everywhere due to the wind)...

And if a private company is doing such a contract using labour provided as part of the benefits system, then they should either be paying minimum wage to those people instead of benefits, or else the private company should be receiving a significantly reduced fee just for managing

Fire the private company, since they would now have people to do the job more efficiently on their own. Problem solved. If that had some other issue I am overlooking, then find something else for them to do. The point is that you are making them do SOMETHING so that they have an incentive to go do something better and get out of the system. Make them stack and unstack boxes. It really does not matter. Fill in potholes. Do jumping jacks. Take classes in a field that is hiring (nursing, welding, programming,

"Whenever you create a system which covers people's basic needs without asking anything in return you'll create a bunch of people who'll take what's offered then dedicate their free time to wheeling and dealing for beer money (usually doing 'easy money' stuff which is detrimental to society...)"

Um...

In my state, unemployment is an INSURANCE program that you pay into when you are working. You can only collect if you have paid into it. And you ALSO have to fulfill certain requirements, such as applying for a certain number of jobs per week and turning in those records so they can check up on you.

I don't disagree with you in principle but let me play devils advocate.

I left my job to do some traveling once and when i returned was voluntarily unemployed. So I was not collecting any assistance, however I have recent ( a couple years ago ) experience as an unemployed job seeker none the less.

You work the web. You call your friends, and contacts, and sit by the phone. Well several times I got calls, to the gist of "hey just read you CV can you come in and interview today?"

My point here is that just because someone is unemployed for longer than six months does not necessarily make them a parasite.

Of course not...

We need a name for the slashdot effect where somebody posts a single sentence and everybody who reads it thinks that's a full, complete plan with no possible exceptions, extensions or modifications. Relying on the reader's imagination simply doesn't work.

it sounds like slavery to me, because people are forced to work and do not get any wages. A workforce for the government should be paid at least minimum wage, and not be on welfare which comes with a lot of other restrictions. The system asks a LOT in return for welfare... more than a job, in my dutch experience.

As with most systems there is abuse. There are people who want to abuse the system and get money to live and not work. Others just need it to help get them off their feet. If you push forced labor that should crack down on the slackers, however if they are trying to get off your feet finding a job is a full time job.

Most EU countries got two systems, unemployment (typically limited in time and only available to the previously employed) and welfare (typically lower in amount but available to all who qualify by their need). It is NOT that easy to get kicked out of wellfare because it is after all meant to be a safety net to prevent people from sliding into absolute poverty.

The whole getting the unemployed to work is however a bit of a sham. For instance it has been revealed that programs to get mothers working COST more then they deliver. If it costs 100k to get a person to work for 40k, that is just pointless really. It looks nice in employment statistics but basically the state is subsidizing the employer and the state is you the taxpayer.

And if moms who work can't volunteer anymore at school and the school now has to hire people to do those tasks, you are even deeper in the red. And if they got to send their kids to subsidized daycare so they can work, that is even more money down the drain.

Always suspect government figures on this subject. The idea to get the unemployed cleaning parks for instance sounds fun. Who is going to pay for all the hardware needed? Transportation? Supervising?

It is often just really cheaper to have people sit at home on a minimum income. Not nice but if you want nice, stay out of politics.

Still people say it is not enough and unemployed people should be a workforce of the government to clean parks etc. -.-

As long as these people are paid a normal monthly salary for such work, sure, no problem. Or did I misunderstand, and this is actually an attempt to get unpaid slave labour? Coming to think of it, it probably is. And once you start such a program, you can expand it to provide workforce for private companies in a guise of "training" - perhaps for the very company that fired the person in th

Because you paid into it when you were working. That was money that you didn't get paid while you worked. Now, you can argue the semantics about when the money was transferred to the fund, but either way it's money you could have been making.

And for people like HR reps, it would be better for everybody if we paid them to do nothing. Fucking nazis.

When I was unemployed there were so many companies using New Deal to get basically slave labour. Such delights as a 26-week "training course" that involved 35 hours a week of night shifts for £10 a week on top of your JSA... to qualify to be a forecourt attendant...
Basically the company getting someone to do the graveyard shifts for a pittance who couldn't afford to quit or they'd be reported for non-compliance and lose ALL their benefits.

In addition to only being logging the use of the government job search site, and associating it to a given user by cookies*, you're already required to show evidence to the Job Centre that you're looking for work, often by applying for vacancies listed by the Job Centre itself in order to keep your eligibility for Job Seekers Allowance, i.e. your unemployment payments.

This way, if you're using a computer to search for jobs, using the official Job Seekers search page, that will demonstrate you're looking for

There's an opinion on-line that the UK is turning in to some sort oppressive totalitarian state. It seems like this summary was written with this view in mind. It makes a number of errors of omission.

The article says it's opt-in! It only applies to that web-site too. That's obviously a huge omission to make from the summary. The summary seems to imply that the government would snoop on all traffic of a job-seeker and it was mandatory.

Finally, people who are claiming Job Seekers allowance are requesting support from the government while they look for a job. It's not totalitarian to suggest that we ensure that they are actually looking for a job!

Not only is it not totalitarian to expect people out of work claiming Job Seekers allowance to be looking for work, it is actually a requirement to receive the benefit.

Yes, looking for work is a requirement. A stupid totalitarian declares formal rules. A clever totalitarian creates a reasonable rule, then adds various dubious caveats. If IDS says that "anyone without a job after signing up to the scheme would be lacking 'imagination,'" then we're talking about the reasonable rule "jobseekers allowance only for those seeking work" backed up with the caveat that "if you're unemployed, it's your own fault," despite the fact that we're in a recession and unemployment is quite high.

Yes, in fact, this appears to be something the government is finally getting absolutely right! It kind of amazed me that such a service didn't already exist, but better late than never. Using technology to help improve employment at scale is an obvious and good idea, more of this please!

As I understand it from the news last night, it's currently been trialed as an opt-in system but will be rolled out as compulsory in the new year.

I'm very much liberal but in two minds about it. I've never intentionally signed on except for an educational experience once where I was forced to in order to receive redundancy compensation for months of wages owed when an employer went into liquidation. Now I should explain that I'm an embedded systems engineer and live in a small town in somerset [frome-tc.gov.uk]The experience was fascinating but their system was catering to more laboring jobs than professional. I had to jump through the hoops (despite not wanting to sign on!) so had them trawling through their vacancies. They found me roles as cook, HGV driver, forklift operator, street sweeper... So I suggested searching for more useful terms such as "computer", "software" etc... I think the closest they ever got was IT helpline support in a company a two hour drive away.

Anyway, my point is, if I *did* find myself unemployed and forced to take the JSA, would I want it dependent on a well intentioned but ultimately useless system deciding that I'm not eligible to get the money for support that I need because I won't apply for jobs that would never be on their system in the first place? Er... No.

Having said that, the principle is laudable. I know a couple of people that work the system and have never worked an honest days work in their life and have no intention of doing so as they're quite happy on the JSA. But then, they're crafty and any system that's going to work and do the right thing for the majority of people probably wouldn't be capable of forcing them into work anyway.

Well, the system should really treat claimants differently depending on their past experience, ie someone who has never worked a day in their life is given the harshest treatment while someone who has been working and paying taxes for years and is suddenly made redundant is given a bit of slack.

The problem is that making policy to target a tiny minority who don't want to work screws things up for the majority. It doesn't really help with the minority either because they just get forced into a crap job, lose it because they don't want to be there and end up ineligible for JSA and unable to pay their rent, at which point the government has to step in and keep them off the street.

I suppose we could let them die in the gutter, but it isn't very fair on their kids and once you are homeless it is almost

Will be compulsory to use [bbc.co.uk] for jobseekers from next year (as in, 2 weeks from now).

Have a friend who uses it. They checked the terms and conditions of signing up to use it (remember this is mandatory for those people who wish to sign on for benefits, e.g. somebody who has paid taxes for 20 years and would now like a little back from the taxes to help them get by on important bills for the next few months til they find their next job). If you register on the system, the terms and conditions currently note th

The article says it's opt-in! It only applies to that web-site too. That's obviously a huge omission to make from the summary.

You've not visited a UK jobcentre recently, I take it. "Opt-in" at the government level is like (to use a corporate analogy) "recommendations" from the board that because "encouraged" at the upper management, "strongly encouraged" by the time it reaches middle management, and "optional, but if you don't do it it won't look good at your next pay review" by the time it reaches the ground-floor grunts. Every two weeks is your "pay review" in the jobcentre and if you think it's wearing having to defend your p

... so basically, you wanted to sit on your arse for three months claiming unemploynment benefits without lifting a finger to actually get some money in those three months.

Tell me, if you had a job starting in 3 months why didn't you (a) live off savings for 3 months or (b) take the crappy fast food job for 3 months? Why do you think the government and the rest of us tax payers should subsidese that 3 month gap of yours?

The bit where I said "full-time"...? I meant full-time as in permanent. If they had only pushed casual jobs at me, fine, but they kept pushing jobs at me that weren't seasonal so I wasn't suitable. Others were in places that you couldn't get to without a car so weren't suitable. I was forced to apply, so I applied. The employers didn't even respond to me... because I wasn't suitable. In my life I've spent 3 months on Jobseekers, and 9 years working full-time, earning a good salary and putting money bac

Given how much permatemping runs rampant in the UK and EU (and if the US doesn't amend Right to Work to cover temporary workers, them too), it would be valid to turn offers for "temporary work" that isn't temporary. How about removing the avenues of labor classification abuse by employers as well as removing all the cost reductions?

Spying on the jobless is just like the job tryout program that Tesco abuses and that some security company abused for the London Olympics - doing nothing to employers and not eq

Number one: not everyone has a computer in the UK believe it or not, particularly the over 40's.

Number two: every government run JobXYZ service only has minimum wage crap which is usually supported by government schemes or has chains of hundreds of applicants. Hiding these jobs behind a web site is just going to hide the problem.

Number three: it's obviously a cost cutting exercise so they can stick some more booths in the JobCentre sites and get rid of more staff.

Number four: There aren't actually enough positions to fill in the UK. We've automated or contracted everything out to other countries. People will be unemployed as they are not needed to keep the cogs oiled. Solving the employment problem in the UK is only possible by loom smashing now.

Number five: the government manage to screw up every IT project out there. This will be another victim.

It was approved of by someone whose nickname in the Army was "Drunken". Given that this was the British Army, where a certain officer was nicknamed "foggy" because he was wet and thick, that tells you a lot of what you need to know.

They want a workforce, but they have to assume it'll be unskilled. They can't put these people to work on virtually anything done by local councils as the unions will go ape and strike. A whole load of demeaning labour is already being done by people on community service sentences and there would be riots if they started treating unemployed people like criminals. That leaves them with one option - making deals with companies in the private sector for cheap workers, effectively being a US-style Welfare to Work scheme. Why does that notion fill me with dread?

Even when there are jobs they are shit. Low hours and low wages, but they still want skills. The government basically wants to force people into these crap jobs, suitable or otherwise. Best of all we get to subsidise these low wages through tax credits and housing benefit.

Not exactly. They have set up a website with poor security which may be in breach of the Data Protection Act, and their solution to this is to demand that people use it. The European Court is going to love this one.

I estimate that over my career I've been a net contributor to the Exchequer to well into 6 figures, if not 7. If I become unemployed I expect some of that back. It should not be hard to devise a system which takes contribution into account in assessing benefits, but instead this Government choose

I'm failing to see the issue. If someone is claiming state benefit then the state is entirely within its rights to withhold or limit payments if it believes someone is deliberately not doing all they could regain employment. This is not a new concept. That said, the original article sounds sensational and credits the state with more intelligence than it possesses. I expect if they do anything at all it will be to run a nightly batch job that adds a few rows to the existing unemployment records of a person which say the last time they visited the site, how many jobs they looked at and how many they applied for. It might provide ammunition during an interview and help a decision stick but it's not going to tell welfare officers anything they probably didn't know from talking to a person.

I think a payment card (which the article also discussed) is way overdue and would cut down benefit fraud and stop people using money they should be spending on food using it to spend on drugs, booze, cigarettes or the geegees.

I'm failing to see the issue. If someone is claiming state benefit then the state is entirely within its rights to withhold or limit payments if it believes someone is deliberately not doing all they could regain employment. This is not a new concept. That said, the original article sounds sensational and credits the state with more intelligence than it possesses. I expect if they do anything at all it will be to run a nightly batch job that adds a few rows to the existing unemployment records of a person which say the last time they visited the site, how many jobs they looked at and how many they applied for. It might provide ammunition during an interview and help a decision stick but it's not going to tell welfare officers anything they probably didn't know from talking to a person.

I think a payment card (which the article also discussed) is way overdue and would cut down benefit fraud and stop people using money they should be spending on food using it to spend on drugs, booze, cigarettes or the geegees.

Who cares if they spend the payment card funds on booze or cigarettes? I sure don't. Why do you feel the need to tighten the noose around people?

How is it tightening the noose? Providing you spend the money on food as you are meant to, you are no worse off. However if you are a chronic alcoholic, or drug user or smoker the state should not be funding your habit and providing the benefit as a payment card puts a barrier in the way of using it as such. Second, aside from people abusing the money it could also discourage benefit fraud (since there is less discretionary money available) and detect patterns of fraud since it would go through electronic p

This makes a strong argument for unplugging from technology altogether. I realize this article is probably a whole lot of sensationalism but it also serves as a slippery slope warning. If laws were enacted similar to this one, I would go old fashioned in my job search altogether. The reality of the situation is that only a small number of people will find ways to take advantage of a system. Should the majority be punished for the transgressions of the few? No, that is tyranny.

It is fairly pathetic that first world countries in this day and age aren't able to provide the basic dignity of decent payed work to all its citizens.

Anyone living in a country with involuntary unemployment has no reason whatsoever to be proud of their country. Developed countries my ass. More like undeveloped barbaric countries. All modern first world countries have the capacity to afford to provide low skill jobs to all their citizens (and the job possibilities exists as well) . They just choose to not d

Fair enough if you don't want to be a street cleaner or janitor... But why then should the government (ie the rest of us taxpayers) give you free money?

If you don't want to do an unpleasant job, then you should find yourself a better one, you should have no right to simply sit on your ass at the expense of everyone else until the perfect job comes along. Instead work hard at your unpleasant job and perhaps study part time so you can learn something better.

People in other countries have it far worse, in many places the government won't do anything for you at all if you haven't got a job, so your choice is between picking up trash from the street or having to sleep among that trash.

Incidentally, picking up trash isn't that bad of a job... You get gloves, a stick with a grabbing claw on the end, brushes etc so it's not like you actually have to get covered in filth. You just walk around pushing a trashcan on wheels, and any trash you see you pick up with your claw and put in the trashcan. You even get a sense of satisfaction because the streets look a lot better when they aren't covered in trash.

It's a horrible job.One summer, I fancied an outside job. There was one for cutting grass all day. Perfect, I thought. Fresh air, sunlight, and that smell of freshly cut grass all day.

Before the engines were starter, litter picking was in order.

Most of the time it was on housing estates and people actually had the price of the grass cutting added to their rent. They still choose to throw out nappies, used toilet paper, last night's dinner, condoms, tampons and everything else yucky.

If you pay taxes for 20 years then need a hand paying for bills for a few months, getting 50 / week back out of those 20 years taxes does not equal "free money".

Studying part time for certified courses costs money as well. Studying using free resources either requires access to the internet (costs money for net connection) or libraries (government seems to be closing them down, our local one isn't open on Saturdays any more, means no parent and child reading sessions if the parent is in work....).

Problem is that being a street cleaner or janitor is not a viable job for most people. They still need tax credits and housing benefits just to live. If they have a mortgage and the government stops paying off the interest they will lose their home.

Instead of trying to force everyone into shit jobs how about we try to make good jobs available to everyone? I'm not talking mega-bucks wages, just reasonably well paid and suitable employment.

Around here, you only get unemployment insurance paid under the following conditions: 1. You worked at least 30 hours a week for six months prior at a single job 2. You lost your job "through no fault of your own" - meaning you weren't fired for smoking a joint on the property or something. So part time, short term employees who did a terrible job for the two weeks they worked don't qualify.

The one time I collected unemployment insurance, I had been downsized from a full time salaried position as manage

I think what people are getting at is that you should not have to pay the unemployment insurance premium. Self insurance by building a basic emergency fund would be far more cost effective. If you cannot afford an emergency fund of ~3 months of expenses then you need to increase your income, sell something, or adjust your lifestyle. Someone who cannot do this is already screwed, since they will be broke no matter how much they make. I have known plenty of people who have gone on unemployment while still dri